Fellow members
You will already be aware the Trust committee has been working with former St. Mirren director Gordon Scott in recent months on a joint offer for the majority shareholding in the club held by the consortium (http://www.smisa.net/news-archive/180-smisa-statement-fan-ownership-gordon-scott). Below is an update on progress with that.
The model we are working towards would - if a deal is agreed - see Gordon become chairman and majority shareholder, while SMiSA would substantially increase its shareholding and receive a place on the board.
The Trust would then continue to fundraise over the long term to buy out Gordon's shares, meaning the fans would ultimately have majority ownership of SMFC at some point down the line.
While the current board deserve enormous credit for all they have done for the club over the past two decades, they have made it clear they want to move on and they will, at some point, sell up.
We believe our model is the best possible option for the club and for Paisley and see it as the only viable way to keep St. Mirren in the hands of the people who will care for it best...you.
The news is that SMiSA representatives and Gordon recently met with members of the consortium for some initial discussions around our offer.
Nothing has been agreed, and we would stress more work will be needed before there could ever be an agreement.
But the discussion was positive and all parties are committed to working together to look at routes through which agreement could be found.
Of course any deal would only be agreed in principle - nothing can or will be signed without first being approved by a vote of all SMiSA members.
In the meantime the SMiSA committee will continue to work behind the scenes to refine our model. As you can imagine a share purchase of this size is a massive undertaking.
In the past few months we have been very busy as we work through the financial, fundraising and legal aspects of the deal and there remains a lot of work to be done on our side.
We have also met with colleagues at the ‘Foundation of Hearts’, who have successfully pulled off a scheme similar to our own, and would like to thank them for their advice, which has been a massive help to us.
In terms of further announcements, we want to make sure we are as open as possible but hope you would appreciate the negotiations bring a need for confidentiality, meaning there are aspects we simply cannot go into for now.
With such a complex deal, negotiations were never going to be straightforward or be over with quickly.
However we will continue to keep members up to date as soon as there is something we are able to report.
The SMiSA Committee
You will already be aware the Trust committee has been working with former St. Mirren director Gordon Scott in recent months on a joint offer for the majority shareholding in the club held by the consortium (http://www.smisa.net/news-archive/180-smisa-statement-fan-ownership-gordon-scott). Below is an update on progress with that.
The model we are working towards would - if a deal is agreed - see Gordon become chairman and majority shareholder, while SMiSA would substantially increase its shareholding and receive a place on the board.
The Trust would then continue to fundraise over the long term to buy out Gordon's shares, meaning the fans would ultimately have majority ownership of SMFC at some point down the line.
While the current board deserve enormous credit for all they have done for the club over the past two decades, they have made it clear they want to move on and they will, at some point, sell up.
We believe our model is the best possible option for the club and for Paisley and see it as the only viable way to keep St. Mirren in the hands of the people who will care for it best...you.
The news is that SMiSA representatives and Gordon recently met with members of the consortium for some initial discussions around our offer.
Nothing has been agreed, and we would stress more work will be needed before there could ever be an agreement.
But the discussion was positive and all parties are committed to working together to look at routes through which agreement could be found.
Of course any deal would only be agreed in principle - nothing can or will be signed without first being approved by a vote of all SMiSA members.
In the meantime the SMiSA committee will continue to work behind the scenes to refine our model. As you can imagine a share purchase of this size is a massive undertaking.
In the past few months we have been very busy as we work through the financial, fundraising and legal aspects of the deal and there remains a lot of work to be done on our side.
We have also met with colleagues at the ‘Foundation of Hearts’, who have successfully pulled off a scheme similar to our own, and would like to thank them for their advice, which has been a massive help to us.
In terms of further announcements, we want to make sure we are as open as possible but hope you would appreciate the negotiations bring a need for confidentiality, meaning there are aspects we simply cannot go into for now.
With such a complex deal, negotiations were never going to be straightforward or be over with quickly.
However we will continue to keep members up to date as soon as there is something we are able to report.
The SMiSA Committee